1. Field of the Invention
The present disclosure relates to sensors and more particularly to sensors and methods for locating a breach in a fluid-carrying conduit such as a pipeline.
2. Description of the Related Art
There are over 52,000 municipal water systems in the United States alone. Many of these systems are 100 years old or more and are experiencing large losses in the delivery of water due to infrastructure degradation. This so called “non-revenue water” can reduce system throughput by as much as 40% or more. A new business opportunity exists for a company that can quickly identify compromised water systems, and repair and maintain them for less than the expense of production of non-revenue water supplies.
Several approaches have been attempted to identify and locate municipal water line leaks. In general, there are two primary methodologies for identifying leakage including aerial surveillance and pipeline inspection gauges (pigs). For aerial surveys, LiDAR mapping and high resolution videography are typically employed. In the case of pipeline pigs, several technologies have been applied including acoustic tomography, laser scanning or structured lighting, video imaging and even neutron tomography. For tunnel systems that are not near the surface or are covered by urban clutter, aerial surveillance is ineffective. Furthermore, methods employing pipeline pigs also provide sub-optimal performance due to the conditions within the water tunnel (e.g. water turbidity, presence of debris, complex pipeline geometries and size, etc.), or, in the case of neutron tomography, is exceedingly expensive.
What is needed is a low-cost system and method for inspecting conduits to determine if a breach is present and, if so, locate the breach.